Another based on a 4-koma manga that is 24 minutes instead of 3. Will it work?
What They Say:
Omiya Shinobu has just become a first year high school student. Heading to school in an unfamiliar uniform, she finds a single piece of air mail on the counter in the entrance to her home. The sender is the daughter of the family she stayed with in middle school, Alice Cartalet!
The Review:
Shinobu heads to England for a homestay with her mom’s friend, basically a way for her to become more cultured and see the world. Plus, who wouldn’t want to go to England for a week for free? The director, Tensho, has only done storyboards and episode direction prior to this, but he/she seems to be doing well so far. And the series composer, Yuniko Ayana, has previously done Denpa Onna (known in English as Ground Control to Psychoelectic Girl), so you can make a judgment on her merit based on that—I haven’t watched Denpa Onna myself. The studio, Studio Gokumi, hasn’t done much in terms of their own productions—the most notably Saki Episode of Side A and The Severing Crime Edge. Otherwise, they’ve done some in-between animation here and there, which include Evangelion 3.0.
Shinobu is the hyper “genki” character, but it wasn’t immediately evident to me that that was the case. She’s much more polite and subdued in the first half. Alice, on the other hand, is subdued and very shy. We get to see the most out of these two characters, since they’re prominent throughout the entire episode. Shinobu’s friends back in Japan, Aya and Yoko, are merely friend characters right now, but will obviously grow as the series progresses. Aya seems a little too sure of herself and Yoko is the level-headed one of the group thus far.
The England section is fast paced and feels like too much was crammed into the 10 or so minutes that it was given, but it’s a funny and pleasant ride through the English countryside. The language barrier prevents Shinobu and the family’s daughter Alice from speaking to each other much, but that doesn’t stop them from becoming quick friends.
Much of the first half depends on comedy based on that language barrier and cultural differences. One would think that the jokes would run dry pretty quickly, but it actually works in this series. The second half is when Shinobu is back in Japan and is more set up for the rest of the series than anything else. This section, in comparison to the first, felt a little dragged out. But meeting Aya and Yoko was pleasant and all the characters seem to be able to mesh together well to create a fun comedy.
In Summary:
There’s a lot that can go wrong with, but a lot that’s actually going right. While the two separate halves felt disjointed in terms of pacing, it was funny at the parts it needed to be and informative at the parts it needed to be. The disjointed feeling I got watching it might be a result of it being based off a 4-koma manga, but it seems like it could work really well. It’s premature to say so, but it could be this season’s Azumanga Daioh.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
